Thank you everyone for all of the useful information! I will make sure to monitor my temp, drink lots of water and time my contractions. My water has broken at home twice and will probably break again this time. I just hope to stay home as long as I can. I am not far from my hospital. I can actually see it from my house.

Aside from what most other people have said about brown/green water you (or someone else) should check for anything that may be 'hanging out' esp the cord. In the incredibly rare chance you see cord call 911.

the only cause for alarm or to hurry to the hossie would be if it is colored, or if you feel something hanging out, in which case you'd basically call 911 (or have someone else do it) while you get on your hands and knees and keep your bottom up (and don't push anything back in)

As long as you monitor your temperature (if you have a fever, it's a sign of infection), and do not insert anything of any kind inside of your vagina, the risk for infection is extremely minimal. It's actually higher once you go in and they start with the exams, and insertion of their fingers, pushing bacteria up inside of you. So no, heading in immediately isn't urgent. I plan on laboring at home for a while as well, before heading in.

It also gives you a bit of an advantage if your hospital has, say, an "18hrs after water breaks we want to induce you" type policy, as they won't know that your water broke 15 hrs ago unless you tell them that. So it can actually give you some leniency if you don't have a mama-friendly hospital, kwim?

My midwives and hospital are perfectly comfortable with me going 72hrs after my water breaks (at home if I prefer), before they'd even get a bit concerned, as long as my temp is monitored and things look good.

However, if your water breaks and it looks brown/black or something is off like that, I would definitely go in. It could be meconium and needs to be checked out. But as long as everything looks good, labor away mama

My water broke at home and after checking my vitals, baby's heartbeat, and my temp the midwives told us to go to bed and get some rest and left. The rule is nothing in the vagina, check your temp every few hrs (raised temp can mean infection), and call if there is brown/green fluid or lots of blood.

Correct, a CPM wouldn't perform an NST because that isn't within her scope of practice.

I think there is some confusion here regarding a non-stress-test versus a contraction stress test. A non-stress test (NST) can indeed be performed by a CNM, CPM, or OB at an office visit with a handheld doppler. You do not need a tocodynamometer or to even know if the mother is having contractions to perform a NST.

So what is a NST? Continuous auscultation of the fetal heart for 20 minutes. During that time, the mother reports when she feels fetal movement. The practitioner is listening to the fetal heart rate (FHR) to first establish a baseline, then to hear at least 2 instances of an elevation of the (FHR) at least 15 points above baseline, for at least 15 seconds' duration.

As an aside to ~apurkeyp~, a trained ear can most certainly detect non-reassuring FHR patterns compared to the mother's contraction pattern without SEEING it on a strip. You simply listen to the FHR while observing/feeling the mother's contractions. A wise midwife will transfer her client to the next level of care when appropriate.

An as another aside, will everyone please leave defining a CPM's scope of practice to NARM and women who are actually midwives?

When my water broke my OB took the approach of so long as my ctx weren't 5 minutes apart or less, I was comfortable and the fluid was clear I could stay home until 12 hours after...then I had to check back in. My water broke at 3:30, my H is always a nervous wreck so we were going to head in after we took DD1 to daycare. OB was fine with that. Yea, the media and the "OMG My water broke...I need to push" :eyeroll:

Ask whoever your care provider what their limits are...but if you can stay home, do...it's much more comfortable.

if you have short labors, it might be good to go in right away. for me, i feel more comfortable laboring at the hospital because my labors are very fast and i don't want to be in the car with hard labor going on. good luck!!